


maybe, someday

by theseourbodies



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Fix-It: s06e25 O Ke Ali'i Wale No Ka'u Makemake (My Desire is Only for the Chief), Injury Recovery, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Post-Episode: s06e25 O Ke Ali'i Wale No Ka'u Makemake (My Desire is Only for the Chief), Pre-Relationship, Team as Family, this fic is very gentle with my girl cath, this is a callout fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21983389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/theseourbodies
Summary: Steve comes home from the hospital and the team comes to Steve.(a story in which there is a lot of talking about things that need to be said.)
Relationships: Chin Ho Kelly & Steve McGarrett, Kono Kalakaua & Steve McGarrett, Lou Grover & Steve McGarrett, Mary Ann McGarrett & Steve McGarrett, Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 12
Kudos: 64





	maybe, someday

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to literally every author that has written a fix it or a coda or a tag to this nightmare ep, because i think I have read about ten of them in the last 24 hours and was inspired. 
> 
> A very unofficial companion piece to _[want to be your blood, want to be let in](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12463512)_
> 
> **I love a good procedural, and H5O was a favorite show of mine for a very long time. But support for this fictional show is not endorsement of the institution is romanticizes. If you enjoyed this fic, or any of my other H50 works, please consider supporting bail funds and other support networks for victims of police brutality and racism. Remember their names.**

Chin puts a zip drive in his hands like it's a present. Steve, exhausted and trying not to slump back too much into the gentle curve of his outdoor chair, takes it without question but also without much enthusiasm. He's never been so tired in his entire life, his exhaustion compounding until it all feels like a weight trying to bear him down.

"Something from the case?"

"Something you need to hear." 

It's not really an answer at all, but Steve’s not willing to push. There's no familiar agony tracing lines in Chin's forehead-- he's been remade by relief. This year, these years, this decade has taken a lot from Chin Ho Kelly. Through the creeping, eating exhaustion, Steve feels genuinely humbled by the weight of his friend's honest pleasure in Steve's continued existence. He closes his weakened grip around the drive and nods. 

"You want to listen with me?" 

Chin smiles at him, shakes his head. "Maybe, if I thought you could stay awake to listen to all of it. But you look like you could sleep another day, or six. Worry about it when you don't have to worry about falling asleep if you blink for too long, ok?" 

Steve blinks his eyes wide open, embarrassed to be caught but able to smile sheepishly anyway. It's Chin-- of all Steve's extended family, Chin's the only one who has the right kind of energy to call Steve on this stuff without making Steve feel about six years old and miserable. It's the deficit of working with so many dads, he thinks; well, fathers and Kono, who would of course do the right and sensible thing and just pretend like she hadn't even noticed at all. 

Chin grips his forearm firmly and smiles that wide-open smile that Steve hasn't gotten to see nearly enough in these last few years; Steve grips back and lets himself be pulled up. "Come on, let's get you in to bed. Mary staying here overnight, or do we need to have someone here when you wake up?" 

"Oh, trust me, I’m staying," Steve hears his sister say through the open house door as he and Chin make their hobbling way onto the lanai. Mary smiles at Chin when she steps into view; she looks about as tired as Steve feels. Chin very gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and lets the move naturally become a gentle palm cupping her cheek. Mary lets herself lean in until it's both McGarretts leaning on a Kelly who looks like there's no place he'd rather be. 

"Didn't expect anything else, honestly," Chin tells her; together they get Steve inside the cool relief of his house and onto the impromptu bedframe and mattress setup dominating his living room. Steve had balked at the arrangement at first, just like he had balked at the idea of Mary dropping everything and coming back to Hawaii to take care of him. Something in him still wants to push the issue, push away Chin and Mary and get his own damn self up the stairs and into his own bed; but when he had tried to send Mary away that first night home they had gotten about a minute into the subsequent argument when Mary had genuinely started crying, which had set Joan off and which had, humiliatingly, set _Steve_ off until there were a bundle of highly embarrassed and crying McGarretts and a sniffling McGarrett child sitting on the surprisingly comfortable bed in Steve's living room. Steve hadn't brought it up again and Mary had steadfastly established herself as general housework do-er and heavy lifter with more enthusiasm than anything. 

"Maybe take some time, next few days," Chin says before he leaves Steve laid out in bed and already drowsing under the influence of pills and a full glass of lukewarm water. He continues their conversation from the lanai like hauling Steve inside after Steve almost fell asleep on him was just par for the course. "Might help make some things clear." 

Steve's too tired to do anything but nod and mumble a slow but honest good bye. 

\--- 

Three days later, Steve remembers the drive and realizes that he needs his laptop to play it. It's a convenient excuse to call up Kono and ask her to bring it (and maybe some fancy fizzy water and maybe her board if she wants and maybe her husband, too) over to the house. Steve's half out of his mind with boredom; Joan's down for her nap and Mary had gone down with her, both of them curled into a bed upstairs to give Steve and Mary some time without one another and Mary some time to actually sleep. Steve appreciates the breaks-- he loves his sister with everything in him, but neither of them are good with being cooped up like this. It makes them both anxious and cranky in exactly the same way, which makes them alternately snappy and sorrowfully sorry with one another. He's so happy they’re here he's almost sick with gladness, but it's also good that they have some time to themselves.

Still, that doesn't mean that Steve wants to be alone. His team's been so careful to give him space to recover, but sometimes (usually when the painkillers he's taking hit their peak effectiveness,) he wishes that he hadn't set that precedent after previous stints in the hospital. For the first time in his life, he takes no comfort in the wash of the waves he can hear all through his empty house; the shush-a-shush of the tree leaves and palm fronds in the wind seems alien. He doesn't quite know why it's changed like this, and he's not particularly interested in finding out; all Steve knows is that he can't seem to stomach it anymore, and the best solution is to fill the house with sounds of people he loves.

Kono picks up the phone like she's been waiting for a call, and he almost expects her to sound disappointed when she realizes it's him. But Kono sounds perfectly excited to hear from him, the warmth in her voice warming him all the way through.

"Your laptop? Boss."

"I'm not planning on working, Kono, trust me. Chin passed off an audio file, said I needed to give it a listen, that's all," Steve swears, and then swears to Kono again when she asks him to promise that he'll keep his nose out of work stuff for a little while. He's only been home for five days; he knows well enough that he won't really start chomping at the bit until day seven. The fact that he currently can't stand up without feeling the sensation of a seam barely holding together helps his generally willingness to convalesce a little.

There's a notable pause on Kono's end-- it's barely 1200 on a Tuesday, and if he were laying bets, he'd bet good money that she was having a silent conversation with her cousin across the office. He bites back a goofy grin when she finally says, "Ok, but if I get so much as a progress report request from you, I'm coming over there and confiscating it. And trust me, if you send one to Chin or Danny instead, I'll still know."

Steve makes the requisite mumbles and growls before he gives in. Kono laughs in his ear, bright and at ease; Chin isn't the only one that has lost and almost lost in these last years. He is not the only one remade by relief. Steve finds himself feeling unworthy and humble all over again.

He wonders, distantly and in a way that is bizarrely painful, if Danny is able to laugh like that now, too. 

\--- 

Kono doesn't bring her board or Adam, but even though he forgot to ask she does bring a case of the sparkling, flavored water that Lori had gotten Steve addicted to years and years ago. She pops his door open gently, without knocking-- his team all know when nap time is. Steve jerks a thumb over to the kitchen, which has a solid door they can shut, with a grin and she follows willingly. He nobly overlooks that she follows him very closely, much closer than she normally would. Of his team, Kono's the one who's most like him; he knows she would rather eat frogs than ask him if he needs help, but that's not going to stop her from being there if he needs her, just in case.

They wait to talk until they have a shut door between them and a sleeping baby, and then Kono presents the case of canned water with a flourish.

"I figured since you can't drink anything fun to while away the afternoons right now, I could indulge you with some of your gross water." Flavored sparkling water wasn't the only thing that Steve and Kono disagreed about, but it was the only thing that wouldn't fundamentally alienate the two of them for an uncomfortably long time if they brought it up with one another, so this is an old and comfortable fight. Steve spent most of his life in an organization that didn't usually allow for a person to disagree with their commanding officer so casually, even about basic things like La Croix versus regular water. In a fundamental way, Danny had taught Steve what life could be like without commanding officers and subordinates, but now Steve has these kinds of small, playful arguments with his whole team. Things like Steve's taste for barely flavored sparkling water or Kono's honest obsession with microwaveable corndogs, they're soft targets; no one ever gets hurt, and they can bleed off any discomfort that sometimes comes when you're working with people who know the color of your blood and the intimate content of your character and who can push you to your limits because they know exactly where they are.

Steve hasn't been able to indulge in these little play fights in a while, not like he and the team used to. Like the foreign, uncomfortable sound of the waves coming through his windows, he doesn't really want to investigate why that is. He grabs a can from the case before Kono can stash it in his fridge and lets her make disgusted faces while he drinks the whole warm can down straight, only barely managing not to spill all over himself because he's grinning so wide.

Kono digs out his laptop from her bag next, complete with charger and the nice mouse that Chin had bought him for Christmas three years ago. Steve was all ready to load the file up and listen to it right there, but Kono stops him with a gentle hand wrapped around his wrist.

(He had only realized how much they all had touched him when they had started to stop, and he had only realized they had started to stop when Danny had almost stopped completely. He doesn't like to think about this, usually, so he doesn't think about it now, either.)

"I've already heard it, boss," Kono says gently, and they're so much alike. The "and I don't want to listen to it again," goes unspoken between them; she knows she doesn't have to say it out loud. He's always been able to read her so well, so much better than he can read Chin or Danny or Lou, ever since that very first undercover gig. Steve just nods and sets the laptop and the drive aside. He's not ashamed to say that he's hiding, just a little. He should be dying to hear whatever it is that Chin left him, but he can tell by Kono's reaction that whatever it is that Chin wants him to get clear, Steve's not going to have an easy time of it.

"Chin just said it would clear some things up." It's not a question, but this thing between the two of them, it's a two-way street. Kono nods without having to ask for clarification.

"I hope it will, boss," is all Kono says, and takes the opportunity to take the detour they both need. "And speaking of clearing, you won’t believe what went down with this window-washer Lou and I had to bring in for questioning yesterday."

Kono weaves the story for him until Mary stumbles into the kitchen, Joan propped on her hip. Kono catches her up on the tale and by the end of it, Steve has to keep one hand pressed to his incision because he's laughing so hard that he feels like he's going to come apart, a little. Unlike the usual sensation, he doesn't hate it; it's been a long time since he's laughed like that. Kono looks glowy and bright with triumph; she knows damn well how long it's been, just like Steve does.

After Kono leaves with a kiss on the cheek for all three McGarretts, Mary and Steve shuffle around one another in the kitchen to make a sleepy, early supper, and Steve spends the rest of the evening out on the beach for the first time since coming home. He watches Mary and Joan play in the surf until his eyes slip closed and stay closed. He falls into bed a solid hour later, groggy and disoriented after Mary wakes him up with his pills and water; just like every other night since coming home, if he has dreams, he doesn't remember them.

\---

Steve hits peak, antsy boredom on the seventh day, sure as clockwork. Mary sits through breakfast with him before announcing that she and Joan need to go to the grocery store. Steve's eager to be out of the house, and thinks for a moment about taking Mary up on her careful not-offer. Turns out, he's more eager not to be seen like he is now, at least not by people who he doesn't count as family, so he just gives her a crooked grin and tells her to take the reusable bags under the sink. He'll find something to do on his own.

He's just about to call the team and ask them over for a poker game with gold fish cracker stakes when he remembers Chin's drive, sitting where Steve left it plugged in to Steve's computer on the dining room table. Knowing Mary, Steve has a few hours; there might not be a better time to sit down and listen with the attention that Kono and Chin think the file deserves. He grabs a can of his water from the fridge and settles at his dad's old desk, preps himself as best he can, and clicks the drive open. It looks like the whole case, all evidence collected, reports filed, all the minutae cataloged. Steve's grateful when he sees it. He does need work to do, even if it's just reviewing the case details that his team have already taken care of. There are two full audio files tagged with HPD's number codes for interrogations, but Chin's saved the file he wants Steve to listen to with 'START HERE STEVE'. Steve grins at the file name, double clicks, and braces himself.

\---

It's nothing that he would have ever been able to prepare for. It's nothing he ever wants to listen to again. He listens to it twice anyway; he has to stop halfway through the first time to adjust the laptops equalizer and also give himself a moment to calm down.

He finishes the second listen straight through-- it's Danny's voice and the sound of the waves and the buzz of the ambient noise beyond the radio and Steve feels sick with it. With the refined audio, he can just hear himself, cutting in and out as he talked-- tried to talk-- at Danny while Danny was broadcasting. Dread takes the bottom out of his stomach, eats at his guts; he is living proof that both he and Danny survived this, but he still finds that hard to believe when he hears for the second time the crackle-scream of the radio as the plane comes down and contact cuts off.

Steve presses his fingers to the gauze over his incision; the pain is dull but deep down, inescapable. Alive, Steve thinks. Alive.

He closes the drive, closes the laptop, and, unashamed, curls over the desk top, hand still against his wound. He sits, and presses, and shakes.

\---

Steve's in bed when Mary gets home, and she's sweet about it-- she doesn't demand to know why the hell he's curled up like an invalid in the middle of the afternoon, she just quietly drags in a few bags of groceries, closes the blinds in the living room, and closes herself and Joan up in the kitchen. She makes just enough noise so Steve can track her; he thinks it's probably on purpose, and has to close his eyes against how deeply that hits him.

He hasn't called Danny since he got home. They text, at regular, pre-established, home-from-the-hospital intervals. Danny had texted him precisely at 2PM, unfortunately only about ten minutes after Steve had gotten himself up from the desk and staggered to the bed. Steve had stared at the screen for five minutes, then ten. Half an hour had gone by before Steve had messaged back-- half an hour of staring at his phone and breathing carefully and trying to find a way to burn out the messy, anxious feelings when he couldn't move like he usually could. He'd been angry, so angry he shook, and lit up with a blazing, wild pride-- anger at Danny for doing this, for abandoning caution then of all times; pride that his partner had done this thing and that he had done it for Steve. He had swallowed down the whole mess he was feeling. He hadn't called his partner like he wanted to, he'd just typed some message, an affirmative to Danny's perpetual request for proof of life.

Now, Steve lies in bed and listens to his sister make gentle noises at his baby niece. His phone buzzes and pops softly from its place next to him on the bed. He doesn’t check the message—he knows it’s Danny.

Proof of life, Steve thinks muzzily, so tired despite the fact that he’s been laying around in this bed for hours. Mary starts singing a little wash-up song their mother had taught them, Mary's voice scratchy and cracking on the high notes. Proof of life, he thinks again—or maybe he doesn’t. He slips into unconsciousness between one breath and the next.

\---

Steve doesn’t call Danny in the morning. He calls Chin instead, and then Kono, and then Lou, too, for good measure. He knows Danny won’t notice the rest of the team missing and him stuck at the office, because he knows his partner—Danny takes what he needs when he’s just out of the hospital, so Steve can almost guarantee that Danny’s still recovering at home.

Lou takes one look at Steve’s face when Steve calls him through the house and onto the lanai and puts his hands up between them.

“Listen, I don’t know what you wanted us to say to him. He’s like a damn bulldog when he’s got something he thinks he’s gotta do, and besides-- there was nothing we could tell him that wouldn’t distract him from, oh, you know, _landing that damn plane."_

Steve scowls and tries to keep his teeth from clenching. It’s a losing battle.

“And before you get all up on your high horse, let me remind you that it was you that he was doing it for!”

Lou’s got this way of reaching right into Steve’s brain and pushing over all his best laid defenses. It’s not like Kono, who could do the same things and chooses not to because she and Steve know one another so well; Lou is a whole different type of person, kind of like Danny, someone who looks at a person and can just know things about them. Danny can do this, but he can usually only do it reliably with Steve; Lou seems to be able to do it with any damn person he likes, which is incredible to watch happen to other people but jaw-achingingly terrible to deal with when it’s directed at Steve. 

Lou just crosses his arms over his chest and scowls right back at Steve instead of gloating, which is his one redeeming quality in times like this. Steve’s seen Lou do the exact same thing to both of his children, but unlike his kids Steve can’t stomp his foot or lean in and rest his tired head on Lou’s bicep or shoulder. Steve just works with too many fathers now; he never would have even thought about this before. Like so many other things in Steve’s life, this is probably, mostly Danny’s fault.

He wants to cry or scream a little when he thinks that about Danny. He doesn’t know when he started thinking about the things Danny has done to him, for him, in terms of fault and blame. He doesn’t know when he lost track of the good things that his partner has done for him. He doesn’t know why, when he had heard Danny tell Control that he couldn’t land that plane in the water, he’d been so, so _angry._

(This is not really true. There’s a very real chance that Steve does know why he’s thinking this way, but like a lot of things Steve doesn’t like to think about it, and so he doesn’t.)

“Steve,” Lou calls to him, effectively breaking the tension apart with one clean blow in exactly the right place; his voice is so gentled, so fond, it almost feels like a killing blow. “Steve you little idiot. You know what my wife says to me when I get like this? She says, feel what you feel, not what you think you should feel.” He leans down a little to look Steve in the eye; it’s not that far to lean, but it’s effective as hell. “You know what I’m sayin’? Just don’t try to name it or let it out the way you think you should. You lost half your liver, my man, you almost fell out of the sky—I'm betting, maybe for the first time you thought you might actually die. It’s ok to be messed up about that, but don’t try to direct that messed up shit where it doesn’t belong.”

Steve stares at him. His lip absolutely does not quiver or tremble or do anything else, but Lou relaxes anyway. He uncrosses his arms and sets his hands on Steve’s stiff shoulders.

“Just feel it, brother. Just let it come. You’ll figure it out; we’ll help you get there, Steve, don’t worry.”

If Lou keeps talking, Steve’s going to lose it, right here and in a big way, so he just nods and steps away. Lou lets him go, lifting his hands away like a peace offering. They stand like that for a while, until the door opens again, letting Chin and Kono into the quiet of the house.

Steve calls them back, and they get started on getting there.

\---

Afterwards, Chin stays behind.

“You know why I wanted you to hear that, Steve?” he asks as he sits with Steve, out on the lanai again. 

Steve thinks about it, really thinks about it, but he doesn’t know. He never seems to know quite what Chin’s trying to tell him, and now his head is aching as he shakes it no. Luckily for him, Chin’s a patient man.

“It's a little because I just wanted you to know. Danny wouldn’t tell you, because he’s never told you about this kind of thing before, but I think you have the right to know how it happened. It helps, later, when you know for certain.”

Later, when the dreams start and the nightmares come, Steve fills in silently. His medication has been putting him under and keeping him there, but that’s not going to be how it is forever. Steve’s always been prone to bad dreams.

“Mostly though, I think I just wanted to break a little of the tension that’s been building between you guys. I don't think you’ve been doing it on purpose, but it’s like you’re trying to punish him for something. I hoped that, whatever it is, you might be able to let up a little now.”

Steve turns to stare at him, struck dumb. _Punishing?_

Chin meets his eyes steadily and shrugs. His face is still so smooth and unlined by worry, even when they’re talking seriously like this. “Like I said, I don’t know what it was or what it is. And don’t think that I’m saying Danny isn’t also capable of causing his own issues, here. I just know what I’ve seen-- that you’ve been pushing, and Danny’s been taking it, and I’m not sure how much more we as a family can take.”

The incision on Steve’s belly throbs—he's been weening himself off the pain medication, so this is perfectly normal. It is in no way connected to how this conversation is making him feel about the man that donated half of a vital organ to Steve barely over a week ago.

“Chin,” he starts, but it’s weak. He can’t think of anything else to say. He wants to feel something other than an open pit in the center of his chest-- anger or sadness or anything, but all he feels is a nauseous vertigo.

_Feel what you feel,_ Lou says stubbornly in the back of his mind.

Chin looks at him without pity, but his smile is familiar and sad. Steve is frozen all over again, horrified. The last thing he wants is to be the cause of that look.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, or to punish you, too, I just want you to know—I’m not sure what you’re doing, but I don’t want to sit back and watch you set fire to something without even knowing that you’re carrying a match. Danny loves you, and so do we. If you’re trying to test that, let me be the first to tell you that you don’t need to.”

“I wouldn’t,” Steve says, and it sounds like a gasp. “Chin, I wouldn’t ever."

Chin looks at him carefully for long seconds, then finally nods. “I didn’t think so, either. But Steve, that means that there’s still something that’s going on here, something that I think only you and Danny can figure out.”

Steve has to look away from him, turn his gaze out to the ocean as it goes in and out and in. He matches his breathing to the tide, looking for an old comfort; this time, he can’t seem to find it over the sound of Chin’s voice in his head saying _You’ve been pushing, and Danny’s been taking it._

“Chin-- I don’t--”

“Steve,” Chin cuts him off gently, so gently. “I’m not telling you this to punish you, remember? I Just wanted to talk to you because I—I know what it’s like, to leave things undone and unsaid. And I’ll admit, in the past, I haven’t always been there to see Danny when he goes after you. Because he goes, and he doesn’t stop, Steve. Not until he knows.” Chin looks out at the surf this time, frowning. Looking for his own peace, maybe. “You know, he broke three ribs when he got the plane on the ground. He almost punctured his lung going after our perps later.”

Steve slumps back, lets his head fall back to look at the sunset sky instead of the waves. He feels like he’s choking. He swallows three times before he can finally rasp, “I didn’t know.”

“I figured you didn’t. We’re lucky they took him in for surgery; they could have told him no, sent him to get checked and taped up instead. It would have taken an hour, more than that to clear him, though, and we didn’t have that kind of time.”

_We._ Something very fragile cracks apart in Steve, maybe in his head or maybe in his heart.

“I know what I think that means for Danny, Steve. You know him even better than I do, maybe even better than I know Kono, so maybe you’ll think differently. Still, I’m betting we’ll come to the same conclusions.”

Steve thought they might, too, but he’s having trouble ordering his thoughts enough to get a conclusion through. He thinks he has something, but when he starts to ask Chin what it is that he thinks all this means for Danny, so Steve can check his work, instead Steve chokes out: “He doesn’t even touch me anymore,” in a tight, embarrassing voice.

Steve jerks up, wincing and wide eyed. That couldn’t have been him making that confession to the sky and the sea and Chin Ho Kelly. That tight, hurting voice couldn’t have been him. He curls in on himself, in the ache in his side and his belly, and he almost flinches when he feels Chin set a sure, warm hand at the junction of his shoulder and his neck. Chin rocks him, back, forth, back, just a little, and says, “I know bruddah. I know.”

\---

Chin sees him to bed again; Steve still doesn’t dream.

\---

Steve thinks that the main problem is Catherine. Or the main problem is how Steve felt about Catherine, which he had thought was a remarkably simple way to feel about a person. It just got complicated if he thought about it too long. Unfortunately, since she’d left him behind, he’d had a lot of time to think about it. He loved her, he’d come to love her in all the ways that a person should love the girl that they’re dating, and that had felt enormous to him when he had realized it, months and months and months ago.

Steve hadn’t felt that way about her always; back when he had met her, she had been an electric spark in the world. Everything she had touched had seemed brighter, lit up, but he hadn’t loved her at first sight. He hadn’t even wanted to sleep with her, at first. He had just wanted to know her, and she had wanted to know him, and so they had gotten to know one another and it had been the most interesting thing to ever happen to Steve. They’d walked in and out of each other's daily lives, but the Navy had been everything to Steve, then—even when they hadn’t seen one another in months, they had felt so connected. Every conversation they had felt like the same conversation, just paused sometimes; there was nothing he had said to her that she hadn’t understood.

He hadn’t thought that that had been love, but that had been before he had come back to the islands; before he had learned that love can be everything you feel about a person, the good and the bad things. That you could love a person even without wanting to touch them with intent; that you could love a person, even when all you knew about them was that they were loved by someone you loved. He hadn’t known that, then, and so he hadn’t had a word for what he felt for Catherine until he realized that he _did_ want to touch her with intent. That he wanted to put his hands on her and make her feel better than good, and he wanted her to know that he was the one making her feel this way. Then all that feeling had gotten all mixed up with the sex, and it had felt like everything he needed slotting into place.

Then, Steve had come back to Hawai’i and accidentally put down roots. His family, the people that he loved who loved him back so much, they had bloomed all around him and it had been easier to sort out the things that he felt when he was so firmly settled in one place. That was probably Danny’s fault, too—or, that was probably because of Danny. Danny had given Steve pieces of civilian life like a series of illustrated lectures—here is how you stock a fridge for longer than two days at a time, here is how you use small talk, here is how you love one another. Here is how you say “I love you.” Here is how you love a person who won’t forgive you; here is how you love a person and let them go. Here is how you love everything about a person, in all the ways that matter.

(On second thought, Steve thinks that maybe the problem wasn’t ever Catherine at all.)

By the time he had figured it out, by the time he had figured out that he felt all the ways about Catherine that you were supposed to feel about someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, that had felt like enough to Steve. He loved him family, all of his family, but he loved Catherine in what he had thought was a crucially different way. It had felt essential to him, just like getting to know her and taking her to bed had once felt like everything he needed. He had known he could love more than one person; he hadn’t even considered that he would ever be in love with more than one person, because he hadn’t felt that way about anyone else—not before meeting Catherine, and not since. He’d been positive, and he had thought that she had been positive, too. He had thought that even if she didn’t want to stay rooted like he was rooted, at least they could feel connected to one another like the Navy had made him feel connected to her, once upon a time.

He hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her that, before she walked away, but even that would have been fine, eventually. Catherine is a lot of things, but he hadn’t fallen in love with her because she was easy to hold on to. Steve had liked that about her then, and he had loved that about her when she had left; he had thought that he could understand, eventually, and now he knew that he could always love her, no matter when she went; Five-O had taught him that, _Danny_ had taught him that. He and Cath, they just wouldn’t be connected like they used to be, ever again. Steve had thought that maybe, eventually, he could learn to live with that.

Except, after that, there had been Danny. There had been Danny, watching him and reaching out as carefully as Danny knew how, and Steve had realized that there had always been Danny. He had been learning how to define the way he felt about people with every day that he lived on Hawai’i, and underscoring all of those realizations in bright red marker had been all the ways that Danny had taught him how to love a person. Steve’s never been this intertwined with another person in his life, ever. If Catherine had said yes and stayed or even if she had said yes and left, Steve had slowly realized that he had been able to accept either because there was another person from whom he could only ever accept one. He loved Hawai’i, his home, for her shelter and for the people who lived here. But he could leave her, and come back; he had left her, and come back, just like Catherine had.

But he couldn’t seem to leave Danny Williams, just like he couldn’t allow Danny to leave, and it’s a nightmare to realize this about himself—that he had loved a person, and not known it; that he had used another person until she had realized it and gone; that he hadn’t been aware enough to figure all this out before he lost one of the oldest, most complicated friendships he had ever had for a man who couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t know how to connect with Steve on the same level. The fact that Danny was a man had been low on the list of things that had kept Steve awake at night; highest had been the fact that Danny might have known what he was doing to Steve, and that he’d chosen not to stop it.

It had felt sick to blame Danny for this, for the things that Steve was feeling, but he had had so much to feel when Catherine had left for good; he had felt so much for her for so long. No matter what Danny said, Steve doesn’t think he’s a complicated man. The idea that he had been using someone he loved, that he had been asking her for something that he may not have been able to give back to her, it had felt like a deep ache in him. Like failure, but worse; it had made him feel like his mother, in all the worst possible ways—like a user, but not entirely on purpose and not because he knew entirely what he was doing to other people.

Everything about Hawai’i had tried to test his patience, afterwards, but he couldn’t hate Hawai’i. He couldn’t hate Danny, either, but it was easy to get mad at Danny—he usually expected it, he could take it, he was tough. Push, he’d push back. It had been the defining trait of their relationship—Steve could push as hard as he needed to, could let his control slip a little, could be angry and sad and all the messy things that no one can train out of a person, only train a person to control; Danny, in turn, could push back, could set the boundaries and more importantly _hold_ them. It was always easy to get a little mad at Danny, except the thing is: this time, Danny hadn’t known. When Catherine had left and Steve had realized all these messy, terrible things, Danny hadn’t known what it had done to Steve, or what fire it had lit on the bridge between the two of them. Steve had been angry, and Danny hadn’t known, and Steve’s starting to think that he’ll have to think pretty hard about that, now. This might not be something that time and spilled blood will be able to heal.

(Steve thinks that maybe it wasn’t Catherine that was the problem, and it may not be Danny after all. It might have just been Steve, all along, but that’s harder to think about. That’s pretty hard to accept, even given what he knows now.)

\---

“Why didn’t you land the plane in the water, Danny?”

The silence on the other end of the line is deep and pointed. Steve winces preemptively, but there’s no going back now. Fewer pain pills and sleeping drugs mean his mind is clearer; it also means he’s not sleeping ten hours a night, or sleeping the whole night through, even. He pulls his phone away from his ear to guiltily check the time, and then winces—it's 0400 on the dot. 

“....You haven’t spoken to me in twelve days. That’s almost two weeks, Steve. This, this is really what you want to talk to me about?” Danny sounds rough, but not like Steve’s woken him up. Steve’s been taking himself off his pain meds on an accelerated timetable; he thinks that Danny and he are right about on schedule for reducing meds. He wonders if Danny’s prone to nightmares, too.

“What are you talking about, I talk to you; I text you every six hours, Danny--”

“Fine, ok. This is the first time that you’ve called me, which I know is what you knew that I meant but that’s ok. That is ok with me.” There’s a rough sound into the receiver, probably Danny taking in a deep breath and letting it out again. “Now what was the question?”

Steve smiles without any humor. _You keep pushing, Danny’s been taking it._

“Why didn’t you land the plane in the water, D?” He asks again, instead of saying the first thing that comes to his mind. He makes his voice go softer; it’s not hard, not with the house still and quiet around him and the sun not even thinking about coming up yet.

“I couldn’t land the plane in the water, there was—you know, something wrong with the equipment.”

Danny’s voice echoes up from what feels like Steve’s very center, _If I land in the water, he’s not going to make it._ He doesn’t know why Danny’s lying. Steve doesn’t understand, but he’s not as frustrated as he usually is about the not knowing.

“Good thing you didn’t, partner. Might not have gotten me out like you did. I might not have made it,” Steve tells him. He ignores the way that he can hear Danny’s breath stutter.

“Christ, what was a ‘sposed to do, huh?” Danny asks, but Steve thinks he’s not really asking Steve that question. Maybe he’s asking God, or the universe. His voice is a confessional kind of quiet. “Fine. It was you or the safer landing, honestly. Is that better, do you feel better now? Can we argue about the finer points of amateur emergency airplane landing at a more civilized time in the morning? Or, better yet, never?”

Steve leans his head back against the pillow behind his head. “Hey, never’s good enough for me, partner. You did good, Danny, that’s all I need to know.”

Another long, silence and then Danny chuffs out a laugh. “Jeez, you really did take a beating if you’re agreeing with me. You good, babe?”

Steve had been absolutely holding his breath through Danny’s silence—he lets it loose again in a gust. “Yeah, Danny. Just can’t sleep as well without the pills.”

“You taking yourself off them early again, Rambo?”

“Don’t like how they make me feel.”

“How they make you _feel_ ? You mean pain free, which is typically the way that _pain_ _killers_ function? Yeah, I can see how you wouldn’t want that.”

Steve grins up at the dark ceiling where the ceiling fan is lazily spinning.

“Me, I’ve been dedicated to my daily pill regimen; I’m going to use all the prescribed painkillers and antibiotics and then I am going to _miss them appropriately_ when they’re gone.”

Steve hesitates for a second, but in the end, the decision is easy—if Danny doesn’t already know he works with two of the biggest gossips on the island, he probably shouldn’t be in the detective business. “Yeah, heard you busted a few ribs on the way down? Maybe did some more damage running around afterwards?”

Danny sighs, but Steve swears he can hear the smile in his voice. “Who was it? Lou?"

“Chin, actually.”

“God, he’s worse than my Great Aunts Phyllis and Benie, I swear,” Danny mutters.

Steve wants to keep pressing until he gets the things he wants: why Danny landed that plane on the beach, the full report from him; why Danny hadn’t told him about his broken ribs at full volume; why Danny had given and given and given things to Steve without waiting for Steve to ask.

Instead he clears his throat. “You clear to drive yet, partner?”

“....Yeah. Why?”

“Think you can come my way for a little bit tomorrow? I’m home bound for another day.” _And I miss you. And I’m sorry._

“I have the kids tomorrow—can you handle that, or you want I should let them head back to Rachel a little early.”

Steve swallows, hard. He means to be casual and tell Danny that of course he doesn’t mind, it’s always good to see them, but instead he asks “Would you bring them?” in a truly pathetic voice.

“Babe,” Danny says, soft, so soft. “There’s nothing they’d like more. I’ll swing by after nap time with them, ok?”

Steve nods at no one and says “Yeah, yes please,” and is embarrassingly proud that he manages it without a stammer.

“And listen—the things that happened on this case, I’ll. I’ll tell you about what happened, maybe, ok? Maybe, someday. But I can’t really handle that just now. That ok with you?”

_Anything, anything, I just want to see you. I just want you to forgive me, can you do that?_

But all Steve says is “Yeah Danny. No problem.”

He thinks, for the first time, that maybe they can recover from this. The bridge between them, it’s old stone; there’s no fire that can touch something like that. He’s sure of it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a very soft fic in which i talk about all of my feelings via a thorough application of Chin Ho and character studies. Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
